“The multidisciplinary team meeting in the UK from the patients’ perspective: comments and observations from cholangiocarcinoma patients and their families”

The thoughts of cholangiocarcinoma patients and their families on what they understood an MDT meeting to be, and their experiences around such meetings, were the basis of a paper by AMMF CEO Helen Morement, which has now been published in the International Journal of General Medicine, entitled:

“The multidisciplinary team meeting in the UK from the patients’ perspective: comments and observations from cholangiocarcinoma patients and their families”

The background:

In November 2014, Helen Morement was invited by Mr Hassan Malik, Consultant Hepatobiliary Surgeon and Clinical Lead at University Hospital, Liverpool to speak to an audience of surgeons at the Cancer MDT Course on the subject, “MDT – The Patient’s Perspective.”

Knowing this was a very fraught area for many cholangiocarcinoma patients and their families, it was strongly felt that theirs should be the perspective used in this presentation.

• If you, or someone you are close to, has been diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, were you/they told that your/their treatment would be discussed at an MDT meeting?

• If you were told about an MDT meeting, did you know what this meant and did you understand what would be happening?

• Did you have an opportunity to ask questions about this, and were they fully answered to your satisfaction?

• How were the decisions on treatment options reported back to you?

• Did you have an opportunity to ask questions about this?

The number of replies received showed that this was indeed a subject many had strong opinions on; the frank comments on patients’ and families’ experiences helped illustrate in the most graphic way where medics are getting it right and where, all too often, they are getting it woefully wrong …

The reaction to the presentation was immediate and remarkable – with many surgeons commenting that this would definitely make them take a fresh look at their approach.

This information was considered to be worthy of wider dissemination and so, working with Professor Simon Taylor-Robinson of Imperial College London and Professor Rachel Harrison of SOAS, the paper was written for publication …